In Milan it is the day of the Olympic institutions, of the organizing committees, of the celebration of the round figure: the exact year is missing at the winter Olympic Games in Milan – Cortina 2026: The words that identify the event more frequently in speeches of the institutional figures intervened, Starting with Thomas Bach president of the International Olympic Committeepresent at the ceremony celebrated in the morning at the Streheler Theater in Milan, are “Widespread Olympics”, and “Legacy”.
It is undeniable that Milan-Cortina 2026 in its winding for a ride of thousands of kilometers along the Alps, touching Lombardy, Veneto, Trentino and South Tyrol, from Valtellina to Val di Fiemme, from Milan to Verona, passing through Anterselva and Cortina d ‘ Ampezzo – net of the controversy triggered between the lines by the minister Salvini on the absence of Piedmont – will be The first widespread Olympics of history: the first to not bind to a single city but to distribute events in different regions and territories, also taking into account their sporting vocation, with a view to exploiting the systems already present and already in use as much as possible for international events. All this represents, as emerged from the interventions of the institutional representatives of the territories, of the Minister of Sport Abodi, the President of Coni Malagò, a pride and a pride.
The not easy bet of the inheritance
As long as he is aware that it is also about a bet, not in all simple (starting with the organizational challenge multiplying logistics, as explained by the Milan – Cortina Foundation by presenting their work to two and a half years from the games – to guarantee in all the Olympic villages and in all offices the same standards, it is also, It also senses if it is not said in the official ceremonies to manage the tension that in the country of the bell towers is always lurking). THE definitive budgets will be done at the end, not of the Olympic and Paralympic games, but in the following years when it can occur to the test of the facts with the other key word of the day the “Legacy”, That is, the inheritance that the games leave to the territories, in terms of investment, of added value of infrastructure, and also – painful button – of leafy costs that the modern Olympic history has never managed to avoid and on which the distance often weighs ( Eight or more years) between the moment of assignment and that of the realization, in which conjunctures and contingencies impossible to predict: in the case of Milan-Cortina, the impact of the pandemic and the increase in the costs of the subjects will certainly have a weight Prime.
Territories with different vocations, very different also for characteristics, will confront each other with different Legacy: the mayor of Milan does not by chance speak of accessibility: Milan is dotted with construction sites that in view of the Paralympic games, they are equipped with mobile stairs and lifts of the subway stations and which will certainly not be sorry for the Milanese and tourists who today cursed having to climb for the steps with suitcases and luggage not to talk about who With difficulties of movement it clashes with architectural barriers. Even with the Olympic village of Porta Romana intended for a future of study, as has already been for two structures that housed the press in Turin 2006, we apply to “win easy”, in a city that saw the students camp for months with curtains for protest against the lack of housing for university students.
If on the day of the institutional ceremony One Year to Gothe most controversial work, and with the most rough history, that of the many tenders of tenders gone empty, that is, the Bob and Sledtino di Cortina track, can be greeting by the mayor of the pearl of the Dolomites (which aims to enhance his already high and quite eclusual tourist vocation), by the president of the Veneto region Zaia and by the minister Matteo Salvini, as a result achieved, because the first tests will begin in Marchand therefore it can be said that it has completed it, after months in which it was feared that it would not have arrived in time, When the brazier is shutdown, it will ask the unavoidable problem of a demanding system to maintain and reuse For an ultra -technical discipline that has few adepts, invasive from an environmental and economic point of view, but which risks not having a future as the one designed to Cesana Pariol did not have it after Turin 2006, theater of the triumph of the largest slideer in blue history Armin Zoeggler today technical director. Bob and trampoline track -in the case of Milan -only remedied because they are already present and in operation for international competitions in Val di Fiemme -, moreover, the plug have been in the side of the winter Olympics for decades and their organizers: core business of Federations of great weight in the world of winter sports (Scandinavia, Geneania, Latvia) are a highlight of the program but also a large risk of cathedrals in the desert being the needs of structures in the Alps already subdistically by the existing: easy to predict that the choice of Building a new one for 2026 will discuss for a long time in the years to come.
And Brignone says “present” with world silver in Superg
But as all those present remember, and above all the Olympic champions at the ceremony, Deborah Compagnoni, Federica Pellegrini, Amos Mosaner, gold at the latest games in curling with Stefania Corradini, it would be myopian to neglect the sports side that makes the Olympiad and its ceremony the most viewed sporting event worldwidea place of indelible memories that certainly cannot erase the problems they ask themselves, but which remains the true protagonist of the event.
Nothing better to try it the coincidence between the ceremony and the women’s world superg in progress in Saalbach who saw Federica Brignone and Sofia Goggia disputing the rivalry that is seeing her disappear in a handful of points The descent ranking in the World Cupwhile Brignone dominates the general.
In the end Brignone Second and Goggia fifth to a handful of cents from the podium. But there is still the descent, waiting for the blue to the Cup finals decide how to divide the world. They are no longer girls but one year after games at home they are showing that they want to get to the appointment in the best in the sign of the Olympic motto: “Fasically, higher, stronger, together, together” remembered by President Bach at the end of the his speech.
Tickets and test events, things to know
A taste of the attractive ability of the event is already there: Ià 350 thousand people have been awarded access to the presale of tickets by participating in the draw, From April you can buy tickets in the free sales phase Reserved for the official platform of the Olympics (Milanocortina2026.olympics.com). No draw instead for Paralympic games for which tickets will be purchased from next March.
Meanwhile, the Full Test Event calendar comes alive, the sporting events already included in the international calendar that serve to put the Olympic facilities and the organization to the “test”: the final stage of the ISU Short Track World Tour are included in this category , scheduled at the Assago Forum in Milan from 14 to 16 February 2025, and the FIS World Cup Finals of Aerials, Moguls & Dual Moguls, which will be held in Livigno from 8 to 14 March 2025. There are many cultural initiatives to spread The Olympic values in all the Olympic locations that in these hours celebrate in various ways the year that is missing.
